


Blood of the Covenant

by malrie



Category: Mononoke-hime | Princess Mononoke
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:48:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23517946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malrie/pseuds/malrie
Summary: “This girl is San, my daughter.”
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	Blood of the Covenant

San’s teeth are blunt and small, unlike her brothers, whose fangs pierce rodents with the silent close of their mouths. Moro says that her hands are spry like that of apes, and it is an asset when someone’s paw tangles in roots, or when the ripest fruit is dangling just outside of reach. But jealousy still rears when she yields yet another wrestle with one of the pups, and he gloats by biting her bared throat.

“Enough!” demands Moro.

The pup pulls back, ears flattening at the sound of his mother’s voice. His sister writhes on the dirt floor, forcing back cries. The remaining brother, having only witnessed them fight, sways his tail and revels in his siblings’ scolding.

“No more games,” Moro continues. “It is time to hunt. You two—wait for me by the river. San, I will tend to you.”

San gets up, holding her bleeding neck, and watches as her brothers race each other along the stream. As they run, they nip and bite affectionately, in hopes one would trail behind the other. San is slow, and she knows she would have lost had she ran with them.

Moro treads through the brush to the outcropping where they sleep at night. The sun is lowering past the horizon line, red and dulling like San’s new wound. It casts a tint on Moro’s snow-white fur, looking ethereal. On San’s skin it is golden, but she smudges on more mud to hide the glow.

At the cave, Moro licks clean San’s bite. She feels it start to heal over, slow but undeniably comforting. Unable to resist, San leans her head against her mother’s warm stomach. The rumbling breaths are something of a lullaby. This is her eighth year under the Moro clan’s care, after the abandonment of her human parents in this very land. She wonders how long until the same instinct will settle in, of cowardice and destruction, and hopes there’s a way to escape nature. She digs fingers into her mother’s fur, trying to part the hairs that have matted over time.

“Mother,” she says, because this was the first and most important word she’d learned.

“Daughter.” Her mother lowers her snout to San’s nose like a kiss. “Stay and rest. Your brothers and I will fetch you supper.”

Sleep comes like rain, in sprinkling bits then heavy droves. When she awakes, her family is home from the hunt, all but howling at their haul. The brother that had bit her noses berries onto her lap, and she giggles at the gesture. Moro allows the children first pick of the deer they took down, but not before giving thanks to its sacrifice, whose meal they share in silence. With full bellies, they laze on the ground, waiting for dreams to take them as their mother looks on.


End file.
